SBI opens 25,000th ATM and 9,000th semi-urban branch

State Bank of India (SBI) today opened its 25,000th ATM and the 9,000th semi-urban branch, and said it will add 10,000 ATMs annually for the next three years.

The outgoing Chairman OP Bhatt said SBI had plans to deploy 10,000 ATMs every year over the next three years.

He inaugurated both these facilities at the SBI board room here through video conferencing, which was attended by the entire board of the bank, including RBI Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath.

While the 25,000th ATM is located at south Mumbai's Girgaon, the 9,000th rural, semi-urban (Rusu) branch is at Sundargarh in Orissa's Bhubaneswar Circle.

Speaking at the occasion, Gopinath said though ATM was the most innovative product in the banking space, there was a need for an optimal ratio of technology and physical branches as rural customers still preferred physical branches.

Of the 13,500-plus branches, nearly 67% are located in rural and semi-urban areas, Bhatt said, adding the State Bank Group has 25,000 ATMs, out of which SBI alone has 20,087.

In the last two years alone, the SBI Group has put up as many as 13,596 ATMs. SBI's ATM network processes over 7.5 million transactions a day, disbursing nearly Rs 1,500 crore in cash. The State Bank has issued over 90 million debit cards and enjoys a market share of over 38%.

From June 2006 to March 2011, more than 3,400 branches were opened by SBI alone, Bhatt said.

The State Bank Group now has 18,181 branches. In FY11, SBI opened 1,040 branches, including the merged branches of State Bank of Indore.

Source: Business Standard